If we always read, we strong learn!

We’ve had a dreadful week working with the children at home.

I get the feeling that either they’re rushing through the work at school or the material is too scattered, which creates quite a bit of confusion for them.

For me, it’s absolutely vital that children read, write and enjoy learning. Children should want to learn, develop their creativity and curiosity, and gradually come to understand life’s challenges...

All of this goes far beyond exams... it’s primary school, not a competitive exam!

Children must learn and acquire skills, but they must also be happy and develop their interests.

My kids like to draw, to build things, to create stories, play music...and there is not too much space in school to do It..So we have to facilitate dituation at home: going to special clases, participating into special contexts or making models at home. 

We all, teachers and parents, are "in the same boat": educate our kids to be well educated and emotional enough to prepare them for life.

In our case, we emphasise daily work on what we consider to be fundamental and go beyond rote learning: language, maths and English.

Writing, reading, understanding maths problems, thinking critically, and knowing how to express themselves and relate concepts to real life... these are the areas we focus on particularly and support very specifically in their learning.

Social and Natural Sciences are more repetitive subjects, and we only teach them techniques for organising their work and study... In this case, as the standard system is repetitive and relies on rote learning... I believe parental involvement is less important.

In English, we’re really happy because we’re starting to see the fruits of years of hard work in the remarkable fluency Álvar and Mártín are showing... We’ve put a lot of time and money into supporting what they learn at school and helping them make progress in the world of the second language...

This weekend we’ve been sorting through my books and exercise books from my primary school days, and we’ve been using my 8 year EGB school books to practise reading, comprehension and discussing the vocabulary needed for the upcoming exams.

This weekend was a total game-changer because we combined traditional methods with my elementary school materials and created reading exercises using Gemini to align the vocabulary and topics with what they’re covering in school.

The truth is that artificial intelligence is very useful and has helped us a lot. And we have a thousand resources at our fingertips to support English learning from home.

Here my books from EGB

Here the reading I created with Gemini

>>link Here

The truth is, it’s a pleasure to support them with their English and see that fluency in communication that we thought would never come… but really…

it’s coming!

I encourage all families to support them, if you can, in this process… it’s a real breakthrough that takes time to arrive, but it does arrive.

And...

This week we have an important date, because Álvar and Martin were involved in a traditional drawing context in which they get used to participate...And they have got a prize!...so after all the effort, they had a reward...

Reading and comprehensión skills in a 8M context

8M

This weekend, Álvar had to prepare for a school exam, which was a good excuse to read in English and practise our reading comprehension.

As always, we follow the school teacher's blog, which guides us in building grammatical knowledge and enriching our vocabulary.

When it comes to working on reading and comprehension skills, I recognise that my children are privileged because they have my husband and me to guide them in the process of understanding and practising this skill. It is true that in other families, parents also have this ability, but perhaps what is lacking is the dedication of time to help them. Or the belief that children learn on their own. We believe that in a non-English environment, we must strive to create moments of family work in English to guide them on the path of reading aloud, which is how we work on it.

We started from the premise that Álvar has been reading in English for some time, so he is quite familiar with the #Read&Imagine methodology from #Oxford. Even so, I looked for texts on the topics covered in this exam and we worked on three comprehension exercises:

Today we also recorded him so that he could listen to himself afterwards and realise his pronunciation. He made several mistakes, which he quickly detected.

Álvar's reading

In addition to these short readings, we have read a very cool historical book that also empowers women. Today, 8 March, is International Women's Day, and this is a very subtle way to learn about the past, to learn about American history, and to value the women who fought for THANKSGIVING DAY.

Irregular verbs with #DJBlanca

 Today at home we worked on regular and irregular verbs.

We are lucky that the English school they have been attending for two years now started teaching irregular verbs, and many of them are already using them correctly. link to INFIL https://www.infil.es/

Also a year ago, I made them a game based on number ladders and contextualized with the characters from Stumble Guys. In the end, in English, all exposure to communication that creates fun and real moments and context adds up to a lot.

At home, we always work on English comprehension and oral expression. Our teacher said us to expose kids to english at home. We have luck because we speak english and our kids can learn also with us. 

We have created weekly routines to do always a little bit of speaking, readind or listening...It is hard, but a second language need too much efford.

This week, in addition to communicating using the vocabulary they learned at school, we reinforced regular and irregular verbs a little bit.

We did a really cool activity that turned me into DJ Blanca. We played DJ using this excellent video.

We practiced regular and irregular verbs, making unexpected stops, and Álvar and Martín had to complete their meaning and the conjugation of the infinitive, past tense, and participle.

It was a really cool game because Álvar and Martín themselves asked me to “keep DJing and I enjoyed like a child...

HARD WORK AT SCHOOL, HARD WORK AT HOME.

 I am returning to this blog now that my children are in elementary school and have made tremendous progress in English, but not enough to be totally selfconfident in english.

In addition to being the mother of two children aged 9 and 10, I am a teacher and a lover of languages. I have been studying and practicing language learning for a long time, english and french.

I have a University Degree in Business, and my own training and the fact that one of my passions is traveling have led me to work hard at learning languages.

I currently teach business at IES Fray Luis de León and have been involved in international projects for years. Mastering several languages gives you culture and perspective, helps you grow as a person, and makes you more independent in life.

Nowadays, languages are essential, especially English.

Now, as a mother, I will tell you about the work we do at home to help our children develop communication skills.

Learning a language is difficult; it requires a lot of stimulation to force us to understand and speak other languages.

It is impossible for a child to learn a language solely through the hours of class established by the curriculum. I say this loud and clear: IMPOSSIBLE. For a child to learn a language, they need a lot of stimulation in their environment that allows them to learn to communicate...

Primary school classes are very diverse, and if this is noticeable in a normal class, it is even more noticeable in a foreign language class. Children who are exposed to languages in their environment know how more or less to communicate; those who are not exposed will learn to hate a language because they usually learn very little, and this carries over from primary school to secondary school. Of course, the system has a huge learning gap, but it is true that new technologies have allowed families who do not have an immersive English environment to compensate for this with online exposure, whether synchronous or asynchronous... 

Obviously, behind all the effort made by families to stimulate language learning, there is a significant effort that must be made if the aim is to learn to communicate and not just pass exams.

In the case of my children, I'll tell you a little about how we work on this:

1) We have an excellent teacher at school who really encourages them to communicate. She promotes meaningful learning through international projects in collaboration with schools in other countries. This way of learning is great, but it's true that it might be more productive to focus on a few projects that allow more time to internalize structures and vocabulary and practice communication situations in class. Cris is a nervous teacher, very implicated in her job, we sometimes cannot follow her...but we try, of course!.

Her blog: LAL Aprender Lengua Viva. Metodologías activas

2) Every week, we set aside an hour to improve oral skills at home readinng and speaking. We know it is not enough...but we both work and we also have to manage our home. We read aloud or use the PopPlanet platform, which is wonderful. We are lucky to be able to communicate in English, so we don't use virtual tutors at home (another good option for language immersion). 

Richard Scarry. One of our "very best" autor in english.

3) We do regular grammar reviews in creative ways. I bring the methodologies I use in my classes home so that my children can learn in a meaningful way, linking concepts and creating situations in which they can understand the meaning we want to work on. From methodologies based on critical thinking and Maker Culture to dramatization (which I think is wonderful for language learning).

4) For years, Álvar and Martín have been taking communication classes with experts in linguistics. We are loyal followers of INFIL, a school that works diligently to help children learn to communicate. Even so, we believe that our children need more personalized attention to advance in their own goal of communicating aligned to their levels of english. 

Our plan is for them to soon be able to take part in an immersive English-language activity where only English is spoken.

It's difficult when they're so young, but for now, the “English Village” option is a clear possibility, although it's beyond our budget with two children.

APPS_CANVA

 YES but ...AFTER WRITING BY HAND to control the spelling

It is important for us, our kids write by hand before using digital platforms like Canva because handwriting strengthens cognitive development, spelling accuracy, and language processing. When children write by hand, they focus more on letter formation, sentence structure, and word choice, which improves memory retention and reinforces grammar learning. This initial stage helps them organize their ideas clearly and develop fine motor skills. Once they have planned and written their text on paper, transferring it to Canva allows them to revise, edit, and present their work creatively in a digital format. In this way, handwriting builds strong linguistic foundations, while digital tools enhance motivation, creativity, and digital competence, creating a balanced and effective learning process.

Here one exemple. My old child was revised the lesson for the exam, after controlling the spelling he made this amazing porter for a nice girl, Irene to whom they do many creative workshops.

HOBBIES AND THE POWER OF LEARNING ENGLISH: MUSICA, READING AND TRAVELING.

WE like traveling abroad.

London with 3 years and with a nice book to remember It.

Berlín and speaking about LEGO 

In LEGO fabrik

Always with a good book to read a our the city...

LegoLand and the cruel reality...first english test in a reality and my kids failed It! So they couldn't Profit all the attractions in LegoLand

You can' t go inside!

Toulouse. Practicing listening skills in the cité du espace

Amsterdam and the perfect english everywhere. We really like the public library. Too many ressources on english and for free...

APPS_ CLEW

Clew is an app for learning English by reading books and stories, verey useful for its native voice narrations, contextual illustrations, and full sentence translations. Each kid can read on his own rith, so it is nice to have concience of what you are understanding.

We really like it because it's an immersive way to learn vocabulary and train your ear. Like everything in languages, it requires consistency and effort.

The freemium version has traditional stories segmented according to the child's level. The app offers rewards and prizes for consistent reading, which really hooks children.

We usually use it for a little while in the afternoon, so we have exposure to the lang